The Lithuanian Conundrum

Matt Yglesias wants to know why Lithuania (population 3.8million) is so good at basketball:

As everyone knows, to succeed at basketball you need tall people. Not only do even your backcourt players need to be tall, but you need to be able to pull several freakishly tall big men together. It seems inconceivable that such a tiny country could manage to field so many quality basketball players consistently over an extended period of time no matter how basketball-mad the country may be. Is Vilnius just full of people 6′8″ and taller?

I don't know very much about basketball, let alone eastern european basketball, but I'd guess that these factors (some of which Matt alludes to) probably have something to do with it:

1. Basketball is Lithuania's national sport and has been for a long time. As Matt notes, most of the best Soviet players were Lithuanian. Culture matters.
2. They Soviet system identified promising athletes at a very young age and educated them in special sports schools. I'd guess this practice continues with respect to Lithuanian basketball. I suspect they probably excel at a) identifying talent and then b) coaching it rigorously, extracting maximum potential. Small countries cannot afford to waste resources.
3. That means that a tall Lithuanian teenager is much more likely to be shepherded into playing basketball than a tall teenager in Britain who might, for example, be persuaded to play rugby. The Lithuanians may not divide their eggs between so many baskets. If every tall person plays basketball, you don't need as big a population base.
4. A basketball tradition creates powerful incentives to maintain that tradition of excellence. Eventually, as one can see from other sports in which small countries punch above their weight, that creates a momentum all of its own. Success breeds success etc etc.
5. Even allowing for other factors, small countries should find it easier to compete in basketball than in other sports: you only need five players! Soccer, by contrast, needs 11. 
6. Lithuanians may also be unusually tall anyway.

But what do you chaps say? Are there any euro-basketball experts out there?

Comments

[ally]

On the subject of Lithuania, I'd hazard that they also have a fair bit of Nordic / Germanic in the gene pool and so are probably significantly taller on average than those from the Asian ends of the old USSR - Georgia, for example, which has, conversely, always produced outstanding weightlifters.

As for small countries, I think tradition does count for a lot - Cubans have always been great boxers, and, it being an American article, it's unfortunate but a bit predictable that Matt missed the blindingly obvious example of the New Zealand All Blacks.

[Kestutis]

Matt, thanks for an interesting article. I am lithuanian and will write my thoughts on the topic. I think reasons why lithuanians are so good at basketball are these:

1. Basketball in Lithuania isn't just a sport. We say that it's a second religion :) Historicaly, because of Russian occupation basketball became some sort of resistance. We were very proud beating Russian basketball teams :)

2) System of preparation and basketball schools. Here we have a lot of them with many sacrificed coaches. From an early ages children after passing special exams enter those schools and practise there till Lithuanian basketball clubs takes them to play in a league.

So, I think these are the main reasons. What conserns Nordic/Germanic genes, that's true. Lithuanians are north Europeans with blue eyes and bright hair. We are not russians, we are Balts - whereas russians are Slavs.